Well, a big day around here, as we managed to time the release of the Kindle edition of the book Defining Moments, A Father’s Journey into his Son’s Oxy Addiction with the pub date of a feature story on the author. Our original plan was to have a complete draft ready by Feb. 1 for final read-throughs and revision, then to get it up on Kindle sometime after that.

After my client, Brad, secured a feature-story with Sacramento News and Review writer Cosmo Garvin, we realized we would have to boogie through that final draft in order to have availability coincide with the great free publicity we’d get from a front page feature story.

Brad and I have been together from the start: Spring 2009, Brad was referred to me by a literary agent he had contacted with basic questions, like:

“Everyone tells me I have this great story. So I wrote it down. Now what do I do with it? How do I start?”

We developed this project together, starting with an evaluation and critique of his initial 37,000 word manuscript (that opened with his conception, actually his older brother’s conception, then his, and moved chronologically through his entire life until the day he wrote the story— not a lot of scene, as you can imagine). From the E & C we had some consultations and coaching, moving into querying magazines with a 2,000 word article (with no takers), then getting down to business working determining the meat of his goal: To let other parents know about the very real presence of hard core addiction even in the suburbs.  To make others aware of what is in their medicine cabinets, unused, maybe waiting for the babysitter to steal. That prescription you got for a $10 co-pay when you had your wisdom teeth out? Each pill sells on the street for up to $60. Each pill.

It was such an interesting story and such a noble cause that we couldn’t give up after realizing that he had no platform and really very little chance at achieving mainstream publication because of this.

So what about alternative strategies to publication?  Next…